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CS10 will be great. When I was shopping DP's I played the CA95 and the Kurzweil CUP2 side-by-side in the showroom. At the time I was thinking that if only the CA95 had the CUP2 polished ebony look it would be an amazing DP... and now we have it, summer 2013.

"Hybrid" is just a contemporary marketing word used in so many industries these days. I guess it sounds better than crossbreed, mixture, fusion, etc

In this case hybrid just simply means that it has components of an AP + DP = HP (Hybrid Piano), It certainly separates itself from "digital piano" IMO. I would expect an HP to be superior to a DP from a marketing standpoint.

Kawai misuses for marketing purpose this term for the CA95 and CS10 because of their real soundboard made of wood like real piano...The action is the same as CA65, and 95, and therefore not hybrid in the yamaha sense

Kawai misuses for marketing purpose this term for the CA95 and CS10 because of their real soundboard made of wood like real piano...The action is the same as CA65, and 95, and therefore not hybrid in the yamaha sense

So if Hybrid is based on action, would Kawai have to use the Millennium III Action in the CS10? Would you consider that to be hybrid same as Yamaha?

I'm pretty sure that the paring of the sound board system to the Grand Feel actions used in the CA 65/95 into the K2 style cabinet is what, together, brings Kawai to call this the "Ultimate" of their hybrids at present time.

Neither do I! I don't think they're hybrids at all - the CS10, NU1 and so on - they are just fancier simulations. The only pianos that could properly be called hybrid would be 'silent pianos' and the Disklavier because they actually are acoustic pianos but are also fully electronic and midi-capable. That's genuine hybrid.

The fact that silent pianos are - according to a lot of accounts on here and elsewhere - not much good is neither here not there.

Hybrid applied to the likes of the CS10 or LX15 is just marketing nonsense.

Neither do I! I don't think they're hybrids at all - the CS10, NU1 and so on - they are just fancier simulations. The only pianos that could properly be called hybrid would be 'silent pianos' and the Disklavier because they actually are acoustic pianos but are also fully electronic and midi-capable. That's genuine hybrid.

The fact that silent pianos are - according to a lot of accounts on here and elsewhere - not much good is neither here not there.

Hybrid applied to the likes of the CS10 or LX15 is just marketing nonsense.

You make a good point about silent pianos being "properly" called hybrid. Using this analogy: If a hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses two distinct power sources to move the vehicle; gas or battery. Then a hybrid piano is a piano that would use two distinct sources to make sound; hammers on strings or digital sound engine.

But regardless of who was first to use this term, or if you even believe it's appropriate to describe acoustic piano-like characteristics of a digital piano, the fact remains that the CS10 is a fantastic instrument.

Surely as long as some characteristics, whatever they may be, from each of the two things are hybridised it can be called a hybrid. To suggest the CS10 is not a hybrid is to suggest that the cabinet and soundboard of an acoustic piano is not a very important part of the instrument.

Well yes, the soundboard might qualify it as approaching hybrid status and even more so the hammer mechanism in Yamaha's AvantGrands and NU1. Still, these are only simulations, I'd have thought, whereas the whole system is both acoustic and electronic in the Disklavier and the modern silent pianos.

Yes you could say that. But in that case, all decent DP's including low price ones are hybrids because the most important features: keyboard design and piano sound engine, incorporate features of the real piano: graded samples & or modelling, complex resonance features, actual hammers etc. Sound and touch are considered essential. The way those things are achieved (materials and specific mechanisms) are not.

All of them hybridise different things according to a list of priorities.

Yes, that's true. I suppose what's worrying me, deep down, about the way the term is being used, is that it is being applied to specifically none essential - and, indeed, superficial - features. I suppose you can make a thing a hybrid because of superficial features but it seems a bit off kilter somehow as these marketing terms often are.

Is the piano cabinet part of its essence? It's a good question, but I wouldn't have thought so. It could equally well be concealing (and sometimes is concealing) a drinks cabinet. And you could call such an object a hybrid of a drinks cabinet and a piano. But functionally, it's not a piano at all - just a drinks cabinet.

I own a CA95 and I was originally going to get a CA65 until I played on one. I can tell you that the wooden soundboard makes a very real difference indeed. Enough to convince a poor student to pay another £600. As for the cabinet, it could be an important factor if you intended to use the piano as a teaching instrument.

One of the reasons I got a cabinet style DP rather than a straight keyboard type was so that it looked better for teaching - and it IS better too because the pedals are fixed in the right position and the frame is solid so you can play fff without it falling off its perch. Even so, I don't know if that makes my piano 'more hybrid' than, say, an RD700NX.

And I agree the soundboard is a piano-like feature, but in the CA95, it is activated by an electric transducer, not naturally vibrating strings.

You can call them hybrid if you like but it strikes me more as a marketing term than a real description, especially given that indisputable hybrid pianos have existed since the 1980's in the form of the Disklavier.